Solve the poverty issue in Bangladesh with the Mung Bean Project.
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One day in 2014.
"Under any circumstances, we cannot stop the mung bean business in Bangladesh ..."

Satake will be a raw material for bean sprouts in collaboration with the Grameen Group led by Dr. Muhammad Yunus (2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner) as a social business aiming to improve the income and livelihoods of farmers who are said to have many poor people in Bangladesh. A company that grows mung beans was launched in 2011, but the business was in danger of survival. There was a possibility that the parent company at that time would withdraw from the business.

The glittering smiles of the people of Bangladesh, the friends who have been sweating together in Japan and Bangladesh, and the promises made with Mr. Yunus.
"I can't stop here," Satake visited for cooperation from Our president, Izumo, who was Euglena GENKI program.

"Mr. Izumo, we have been working on the mung bean business to solve the poverty problem in Bangladesh. I would like to ask you because you are a company working to solve the nutrition problem of children in Bangladesh. Will you put it in ...? "

"Of course. Let's do our best together!"

In October 2014, Satake became a member of Our, Ltd., along with all the members who supported the mung bean business. And it was decided to promote the Euglena

Photograph at the time of May 2015 (from left: Satake, Izumo, Yunus)

Satake et al. Resumed their activities as a new joint venture "Gramin Euglena" between Euglena and the Gramin Group. As soon as the business was proceeding smoothly, Euglena was contacted like this.
"IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), an organization of the United Nations, aims to solve the world's poverty problem through agricultural support. Would you like to do a green bean project with IFAD?"

Although more funds have been contributed to IFAD than the Japanese government, there are no examples of Japanese companies actually using the funds, and it is used for Grameen Euglena, which has actively provided agricultural support in developing countries as a business. The arrow of white feathers stood.

At that time, there were two conditions issued by the other party.
One is that IFAD will provide a subsidy to the Bangladesh government-affiliated development agency PKSF (Bangladesh Agricultural Cooperative), so we will conclude a business alliance agreement with PKSF ourselves. And since PKSF has a farmer network of about 20 million people, it is necessary to train farmers who will participate in the mung bean business and contribute to increasing their income. This was the condition from them.
He also stated that he would like to increase the number of farmers participating in the mung bean business from about 3,500 in 2016 to 10,000 in the next three years.

Immediately after many discussions with IFAD's Rome headquarters and Dhaka office, Satake decided to proceed with full-scale discussions toward a business alliance with PKSF.

Satake working with Bangladeshi farmers after harvesting mung beans

However, Bangladesh is a country with a strong bureaucracy.
Satake knew that in his business development, but concluding a contract with PKSF was not straightforward.

For example, after repeated visits to PKSF's Bangladesh office, the contract that was written while coordinating with negotiations was rewritten from scratch due to the personnel changes of the other party, and the contract conclusion was extended for about half a year.
In addition, he traveled to Bangladesh after coordinating meetings for discussions, but he was sometimes told that he could not meet his schedule and had to wait for a long time there.

Nevertheless, the idea that "a business alliance with PKSF should lead to the expansion of the mung bean business and strengthen the support of poor farmers in Bangladesh" continued to drive Satake, who is likely to be exhausted by language and cultural barriers.

And finally June 2016.
Satake's tenacious negotiations were successful, and a business alliance agreement was signed with PKSF. With the conclusion of this contract, the number of farmers who will be engaged in the mung bean business will triple.
In addition, 8,000 people are scheduled to participate in FY2018, including the contracted farmers from before, and it is expected that the target number of contracted farmers of 10,000 will be achieved in FY2019.

Satake is still energetically flying around the world to solve the poverty problem in Bangladesh.

Posted in November 2017